I still remember where I stood that Sunday. I must have been three or at the oldest four. The church’s smell of coffee drifted above the part in my hair, crisply pleated lines of men’s suit trousers at my level.
I reached up to take again my dad’s hand, callused and rough from years of farm chores. Yet the chuckle I heard wasn’t his.
Ever wonder if you’re doing too much for your kids?
Personality-wise, this is my reality. I am a helper, an empath to a point that it arcs others’ eyebrows.
There’s always this weird tension for me when summer break splats on our family like an ice cream cone on a sidewalk.
The kids are fatigued, even exhausted, from school. Heck, I’m tired from the school year.
Reading Time: 3 minutes
So often, to disciple teens just means making the most of a moment.
We’re training their hearts to engage, connecting their faith with everything: from the cashier at McDonald’s to the bully who slams my kid’s locker on their fingers.
I hear this concept all over Deuteronomy 6:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
I hear, Talk about them on the way home from football practice, or as they walk out the door for the SAT. Chat about God over spaghetti and corn on the cob.
I am openly bribing my kids as they memorize verses on this app. It’s working.
I read to my kids out of Tim Keller’s God’s Wisdom for Navigating Life: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Book of Proverbs while my kids are snarfing down eggs or looking for the other tennis shoe, i.e. about three minutes. There’s a closing prayer, too.
Genuine prayer feels like a great way for me to internalize God’s heart and desires for them right now. Sometimes I’m surprised by their answers.
Depending on the kid, sometimes I text them verses I’m praying for them any given day. I may also ask if I can pray with them after we’ve talked about something hard, or to thank God for something they’re excited about.
Speaking of open bribing: I take my kids to a coffee shop of their choice. An overpriced coffee buys me an hour of conversation with them. Some of those conversations haven’t been easy; sometimes just thinking of the Starbucks lobby can make me twitchy with all the water under that bridge.
But if I lose our ability to talk about what’s real, I lose passport into what matters for them. Totally worth a six dollar nitro cold brew.
For me–though maybe you’ll declare I have zero boundaries–this means being available when my teens want to talk. Which is so often when I’m ready for some shut-eye or Netflix, or even when I’m in the middle of writing an email.
No, I don’t want to raise self-centered kids. And sometimes I need to ask if we can delay a conversation, especially if getting out of fight/flight/freeze would create much shorter conversations, greatly reduced drama, and wiser decision-making.
But being available is part of the price I’m willing to pay so I keep getting invited in, and keep getting to disciple my teens by knowing what’s really going on in their worlds.
I love Axis’ Culture Translator for parents, which lands in my inbox every Friday. It’s how I knew Taylor Swift might have gone through a breakup recently, which I knew my daughter would be thinking about.
And my daughter’s eyes lit up when I asked about something in her world.
Axis’ questions sometimes give me good springboards to talk about cultural issues or lingo or popular memes, and continue to draw the dotted line to Jesus–without being weird.
Do We Want Our Teens to Just Make the Right Choice?
Guest post: God of My Heartbreak: Teaching Teens to Pray
Tweens, teens, control–and having my kid’s heart
Reading Time: 4 minutes
In a couple of weeks, my youngest turns 13. Which means I will soon be parenting four teenagers. Which means my prayer life is thriving.
As some parents of tweens chatted with my husband and me last week, I recalled some of the best advice given to us for parenting teens: Keep them talking. Keep the relational bridge open.
It’s great advice for all of parenting, right? But at times with each of my kids, that’s required supreme effort.
With one of my kids who’s frequently alienating me right now, I had to set down some deliberate (righteous! …I told myself) anger this week. I had to ask questions when I wanted to, say, spoon out their kidneys.
(Turning toward them felt like turning toward hurt. But it mattered.)
That said, I’m thinking on two important gifts to give your kids, my kids, throughout life.
A friend recently described to me something she lost when her mom succumbed to cancer years ago: “My mom was good at just delighting in people.”
And she was right. The part of God’s image so clear in her mom was the “Oh! I’m so glad to see you!” Or “Really!”
The woman spoke in italics and exclamation points. You got the idea she was all there with you.
And my friend missed her mom’s sheer delight in her kids.
But you don’t need to be effusive or an extrovert to demonstrate delight. It could be your quiet awe of a Lego creation, your gentle smile and a big hug when your child walks in the door.
I understand this, too, from a season where I felt alienated and misunderstood by the world at large.
But when I picked up the yellowed album of childhood photos of me, tears blurred my vision when I saw a black-and-white photo tucked inside. My mom wears a hospital gown, and I am newly born, naked on her chest.
And the look on my mom’s face is wonder.
Her mouth is slightly open, perhaps speaking to my raisined face. She maybe even looks besotted (and my mom, a thinker, is not usually the openly besotted type).
On that day, looking at that photo, I needed to be reminded I brought delight to someone when I could give nothing.
In our kids’ hardest seasons–as well as their youngest and it’s-a-normal-Thursday days–we carry a unique position as their parents to express our delight in them.
Hopefully, even when it’s hard to like our kids, we can see God’s beauty in them. The way he cheers them on and finds hope.
In that way, delight’s a great discipline for our own souls.
Verses like Zephaniah 3:17 use over-the-top language to communicate God
will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.
I can picture God’s “loud singing” as anything from “We are the Champions” after my son’s track meet to channeled through the goofy songs I made up about my kids when they were little.
Delight, even in the hard seasons, is a bit like the prayer asking God to show us his glory. Show me what you’re doing well in my kids.
It’s about communicating to our kids, You are more than what you do. There is hope to be had for you. Joy to be had about you.
Try this: “I love that you’re so ____. Who you are makes me happy.”
Curiosity is a way of leaning toward our kids; of generating compassionate interest.
It shows we’re interested in starting the conversation with our kids more than stopping it.
It says we’re more interested in our kids rather than only what we have to say or teach, being “quick to listen” (James 1:19).
I’m not talking the curiosity of dissecting a frog–I’ve figured you out! You are now properly labeled!–but saying, Your world and your mind and your heart are interesting to me.
In fact, God regularly asks questions he already knows the answer to. I think of Jesus asking the two men on the road to Emmaus to tell the story of the trauma they’d witnessed around Jesus’ death (who no one knew better than Jesus).
He wants them to tell their story.
Why?
Jesus entered in to the point of zipping a body around him that sweats and passes gas and gets hangnails. I get what it’s like to be you.
And still, he displays a posture of curiosity throughout the Bible.
In a world of people “connecting” through 156 characters, the gift of time and interest, of presence and attentiveness, is precious and rare.
So this week, ask for a tour of that Lego creation. Ask why your daughter likes Olivia Rodrigo, or ask your son what being a shorter kid is like for him.
Lean in.
Try this: “What’s one thing you’ve been thinking about lately? Why’s it getting your attention?”
Presence: Ideas to be All There with Your Kids
Two of the most important words you’ll ever say
When Your Child is Different from What You Expected
How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Once when my kids were younger, back in that season I was covered in toddlers and preschoolers, we met my husband at Chick-fil-A (always a win) after work one night.
When they’d slayed the nuggets and the playground and it was time to go home, I asked our four kids who’d like to ride with Dad, and who wanted to ride home with me.
Hands-down, 100% Dad.
I think my oldest–who to this day, is still telling it like it is all day long–was attempting to console me when he told me, “It’s okay Mom. Dad’s just so much fun!”
Honestly, this is a great thing. First, I got the minivan to myself. But I also loved that my kids played paparazzi (and in some ways still do, as teenagers) to a godly guy who’s constantly diving into their world.
This is not to disparage if you’re the parent, like me, who makes sure everyone gets their medicine, has their permission slips signed, and checks to make sure the 12-year-old assigned to clean the bathroom actually scrubbed the toilet.
Though I have my fun moments–and my fun tends to be like, “the library” or “let’s bake cake mix cookies” or fueling the planning behind the vacation–I am not the funnest.
And neither am I attempting to say you need to be everything.
(Even you, single parents. If you’re just trying to make sure everyone brushed their teeth and wore underwear today, do not feel the pressure to be your family’s cruise director, too. I hope somehow the Body of Christ is stepping up to be fun with your kids .)
But does being a fun parent matter?
Someone recently told me about the time, as a kid, when they accidentally put liquid dish soap in the dishwasher instead of dishwasher detergent.
Yeah. You see where this is going.
As in, the kitchen was swimming in suds.
And in the inevitable moments like these, we stand at a fork in the road, both reactions of which stand to be remembered by our kids. Will we opt to chastise our kids (remembering we discipline differently for childish behavior than for rebellion)?
Or will we laugh and create a shame-lifting memory?
Sometimes it’s easier than I think to be fun, if I can just get my brain there–and maybe stop being mad, which when I’m mad, I don’t usually feel like doing.
Years ago, I was unloading the dishwasher, and my son was terribly grumpy. Inspiration seized me when I pulled a mixing bowl from the dishes. I put it on my head, continued to unload.
Spell broken.
Goofiness sometimes equips us to turn a really bad day into one where our kids feel God’s embrace.
Fun moments with our kids are connecting moments.
Our kids often feel connected to us when we climb into their world (sometimes literally, on that Chick-fil-A playground) and get downright silly. We sit down and watch Curious George with them. Or we climb in their tent and read a book, or pull on a tutu when they’re playing dress-up.
Jesus came into our world, into a barn, and got our mess all over him. (The book of John says, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” [1:14, MSG]. What’s it take to move into the neighborhood of my kids’ lives?)
There’s something to be said for dropping everything and playing with your kids.
Fact: They will probably remember this more than if your kitchen floor finally got clean(er). (But do see idea #7 below.)
Fact: Connecting moments make us infinitely more approachable to our kids, so they can come to us in the not-so-fun moments. Fun parenting builds friendship.
Fact: Fun parent or not, they won’t always want to play with you.
So every now and then I get out and go sledding with my kids, even when I would rather have a latte inside, wave from the window, and feel my fingers.
I recently polled some parents on easy ways they’ve had fun with their kids. Drumroll, please.
, or your own version of Stone Soup (Aladdin Picture Books)
.Child’s Play: 65 Non-Screen Ideas
71 Ideas for Bored Teens & Tweens
60 Easy Ways to Make Summer Special with Kids!
10 Fun Ideas for Kids this Summer!
11+ Low-prep ideas to occupy kids on Christmas break (with FREE printable!)
16 More Fun, No-Screen Ideas to Occupy Kids on Christmas Break
Reading Time: 4 minutes
This is one of those posts where I’m not an expert, just a mom. (Um, most of my posts?!)
But maybe these small ideas will help. And if I’m smart, I’ll keep this short, right?
I sat with one of my teens a couple of weeks ago as they expressed yet another issue where they felt intense anger with the church at large: namely, purity culture. (See “Purity Culture: Lose the Lies, Keep Your Faith.”)
Having four opinionated kids (not to mention adult friends) who my husband and I are attempting to meet with toward emotionally healthy spirituality–this isn’t my first rodeo with church hurt.
I’m willing to bet all of us can resonate with people in the Church being unhealthy, harmful, and downright evil.
Because the church is full of, hello, humans. And despite us being redeemed, new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17), despite the clear beauty of God’s Bride?
Here on earth, we can do a lot of damage in the name of Jesus. (That could be an entire website on its own. Probably is.)
But in this podcast, I was reminded most people who walk away from the Church do so because of emotional or personal trauma.
So I’m mashing together what does work…in a world of church hurt.
My kids’ issues with the Church (big C) have ranged from the less-consequential (“the worship music style drives me nuts”) to the legit (“Why didn’t that sermon on divorce even touch on the abuse of women?”) to the deeply personal and hurtful.
And as a parent who loves Jesus’ Bride with all her warts and loves my own little-C church, this feels personal. Note: My kids’ thoughts are rarely expressed with gentleness and graciousness.
So these often feel like personal attacks. I’m a part of the church.
In fact, as I gently point out, this isn’t an us/them thing. They, too–we–are the Church. (Don’t miss this podcast episode on Healing from Church Hurt, with Jackie Hill Perry.)
My kids have the capacity to be a part of change. And I can help cast that vision.
But first, I need to understand why their pain connects so personally with their story.
I believe firmly that empathy and active listening are some of our best apologetics. But our kids may not be getting that vibe from the pulpit or the youth pastor.
So do all the active listening things (please see these 10 tips on being an emotionally safe place–which help with anybody). Leave at least three seconds after they pause, to see what they fill the space with. Show them your care with your face and appropriate silence.
And of course, nix defensiveness.
To understand kids’ current anger or pain, I’ve had to consider–if not ask them directly–about what’s beneath their frustration.
Remember: Anger is a secondary emotion, following disappointment, rejection, hurt, fear.
So rather than taking personal offense, it’s my chance to enter into their experience. To dig into the why’s, and sometimes the whys beneath those. To really understand, rather than judge or let a theological issue trump my ability to love them well and hear their hurt.
(Again, if I don’t, I lose that privilege to walk with them in intimate spaces like God walks with me in my pain and doubt.)
What feels valuable to them that’s been stepped on?
For some of my kids, social justice is at stake–loving all people well.
For another, it’s issues of relevance. Can the church keep pace with my kids’ world and the weight of its questions? Does anyone care about their experience as a teen in the church?
Author and pastor Tim Keller has written, “A faith without some doubts is like a human body without antibodies. =&0=&.”
So consider these conversations as opportunities to strengthen your kids’ faith from within. And maybe your own.
If you’re wondering if you should make your bruised or angry kids go to youth group–in my (again, un-expert) opinion, this varies vastly by the child.
So pray about this. Ask God for insight about your kid’s unique heart.
In my mind, youth group is largely about
Does your youth group meet these needs for your child? Do you need to supplement a way it’s weak–or continue to download and dialogue about an area of weakness? Do you need to help with some conflict coaching?
If youth group would only make your child feel more alienated, can those needs be met in part by
This is a time to talk with your teen about the values underneath youth group. Maybe this is a season to muscle through, and debrief after youth group together. Or maybe you’ll agree to forgo youth group (…yes, I just said that out loud) if your teen willingly seeks out a mentor or a Bible study.
I’m reminded of a school superintendent who used to be a teacher. He told me he used to look at troubled kids and think, “What’s wrong with you?”
But he learned to start asking, “What happened to you?”
His words bring to mind the parable of the Good Samaritan. An Israelite–someone you could say was in “the church”–when leaving Jerusalem, the Holy City was robbed and left half-dead. But church people tended to walk to the other side of the road when they saw him.
Sure, maybe the robbed man could’ve taken more precautions. And the story doesn’t mention him lashing out like a bear in a trap.
Yet what can we do, like the good Samaritan, to apply oil to the wounds of those feeling hurt and robbed along their journey? Those who associate the Church with grief, loss, and Do you even see me?
May God give you the patience, compassion, and wisdom as you care this week.
“Mom, why isn’t Dad going to church?” When Your Spouse Isn’t the Spiritual Hero
Reading Time: 3 minutes
So I don’t know what your kids’ morning routine is like at your house.
Maybe you picture me lovingly folding lunchbox notes and sandwiches built from the sprouts on my windowsill, sitting down to a full breakfast with devotional book in hand.
In reality, exactly half of my kids are still in the I’ll-wake-up-exactly-eleven-minutes-before-I-leave phase.
Which means I’m flipping some eggs over medium, commanding my youngest to breathe in my face (“Did you actually brush your teeth? Ugh. Back upstairs”), and making sure the right kids are medicated before they go out the door. (No ADHD meds = bad things.)
And sometimes I’m doing them with, imagine this, grumpy, drowsy teens and a tween.
So rather than some rosy glow of spirituality, we are dealing with a puffy aura of, y’know, bedhead. So move over, Pinterest-morning-Mom. Reality triumphs again.
But it’s easier than you thought to welcome God into your insanity.
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, suggests “habit stacking” as a way to build better habits into your current routine. That is, add your new habit onto an existing habit.
We’ve all got these–brushing our teeth, making the bed, eating breakfast. So think: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
What could this look like?
I pray with my arm over my youngest, who’s 12, while he’s snuggled under the covers as I’m getting him up in the morning.
I love starting our day with thanks, and just asking God that my son would walk with the Holy Spirit.
I don’t have those intimate moments waking up my three older teens in the morning, but they all leave together. So when they’re munching on breakfast, I take a minute to pray out loud for them, sometimes asking for requests beforehand.
While kids are stuffing their backpacks or sipping a cup of coffee (which feels as important as prayer to my son, I’d guess)–sometimes I read a few verses.
I’m usually not giving a commentary; see above description of my actual life. But God has a great way of speaking for himself.
Hint: I don’t do this if they’re angry. I don’t want my kids associating the Bible with a have-to or with frustration. I want this to be a rich, life-giving moment.
Though I don’t do it every day of my kids’ morning routine, sometimes as we’re milling around the kitchen, I (gently! Breezily!) ask my kids
See? Even if your mornings resemble a Brawny commercial than a Folgers commercial–you’ve got this.
I’d love to hear: What steps do you take in your kids’ morning routine to help point your kids to Jesus?
Comment below.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
I’ve been feeling an unexpected, if not undesired, kinship with my man Moses lately.
Remember when Moses comes down the mountain to the all-out idol-worshipping party of 2 million people (who God just brought out of Egypt and is about to give the Ten Commandments)? Moses loses it and breaks the stone tablets in half.
Somehow this seems like a super-amplified version of a parent, say, coming home to a kegger and stomping on a teen’s phone.
Which by God’s kindness has not in any way happened here at Casa de la Breitenstein. But let’s just say parenting encounters eyebrow-raising moments, yes? Moments where a godly parent might desire to throw a tablet of some form or another?
After the Golden Calf Debacle in Exodus 32, I imagine Moses is feeling the hard when he approaches God in a key passage in chapter 33.
Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” (vv. 12-13)
The rest of this passage carries so much richness. But just sayin’: I think Moses gets parents whose kids act stupid (can I say that word on this blog?) and don’t change very quickly.
I hear in his plea with God, Please, Lord. These people are your heritage. Your wisdom, your change, are the only forces that can make this happen.
And just maybe, Help me with these boneheads you’ve given me.
(I don’t just think I am projecting, but it’s possible.)
Looking at the history of Israel with God in the rest of the Old Testament? I think God gets it, too. Check out His words right before this to Moses:
Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.
As a parent of sometimes stubborn kids, I think, Um, yes. I understand your fury here, Lord.
So I’m thinking about change, and how it happens, and what happens when parenting feels like two steps forward, sixty-three steps back.
Here’s what I’m chewing on.
Yes, God’s completely capable of miracles in our kids. But in nature, in our kids’ physical growth, in our own souls–He seems to favor growth that’s barely perceptible. Each day, our kids grow about 1/365th of how they’ll grow that year.
And honestly? That’s how a lot of genuine change happens.
It’s God orchestrating (and our kids choosing) opportunities for growth and building essential muscles for growth. Think of a hatchling pecking its way out of an egg. (Guessing I’m not the only one whose parent told them not to help the duckling out of its shell.)
Sometimes our kids need to walk all the way through their issues so change will last–like the prodigal son, who needed to go to a “distant land” and starve to the point he was eating with the pigs (check out Luke 15:13-20).
For more on this idea, check out Do We Want Our Teens to Just Make the Right Choice?
I appreciated this author’s reminder to me that I wasn’t half-dead when God found me. I was all the way dead (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Sometimes when I can’t picture God changing someone, I may not be completely aware of just how much God has saved and changed me. And is still changing me.
As someone who launched a parenting book a few weeks ago, and as an achiever who’s dedicated so much of my life to my kids (homeschooling for years, discipling my kids with intentionality, raising them in Africa)–I really, really have a hard time not finding my own identity in my kids.
And that’s extremely dangerous.
My kids aren’t made to carry the weight of my identity, my sense of worth. That would make them idols. Only God can fill those sucking holes in me.
But if I’m not careful with my heart in that way? When my kids fail, which they do in their own crash-and-burn moments–it’s hard for me not to circle the drain.
It’s tempting for any of us to believe some core identity lies (identified by Henri Nouwen):
But these lies aren’t true for our kids. And they aren’t true for us.
God gives us unchanging, solid value, saying
Building our identity on the hot air–and fluctuating levels–of our kids’ success isn’t enough to sustain the weight of our attention, our focus, our identity, our fear, our worship.
(If you’re interested in more on this concept, don’t miss Beating Up Elvira: Self-talk, Identity, & the Enemy Stalking Your Brain.)
The Bible Project’s podcast episode The Loyal Love of God reminded me of God’s hesed love–this steadfast, loyal, generous, merciful love characteristic of God throughout Scripture (think of his love as told through the story of Hosea). Now that I know it’s about 250 times in the Old Testament, I see it everywhere.
But it was news to me that Scripture tells of people who had this same kind of love. And when is that steadfast, God-like love most tested?
In pain, in suffering. When those we’re loving are being unlovable. Or loving gets hard and long. And when people disappoint us or need forgiveness or patience.
Loving our kids through ugly, betraying, gut-you-like-a-fish moments are your chance to show them, and the world, and yourself, God’s steadfast love without an exit strategy.
This kind of love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:8). And that’s whether your kid snaps at you, or acts like an entitled jerk, or can’t find his way back to God right now.
Hesed is opposite of the spirit of our age, which says we have to act on our feelings. Hesed says, “No, you act on your commitments. The feelings will follow.” Love like this is unbalanced, uneven. There is nothing fair about this kind of love. But commitment-love lies at the heart of Christianity. It is Jesus’s love for us at the cross, and it is to be our love for one another.
Miller, Paul E. A Loving Life: In a World of Broken Relationships
Even though sin makes our kids stiff-necked, I like the idea that God displays a far more stubborn, fierce love.
He responds to Moses’ plea that He will, in fact, go with Israel to the Promised Land: “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”
As parents, God knows us by name–and He willingly responds to us. As Steffany Grezinger sings,
You’re not struggling to hear me
So I’m not striving to be heard
I am sure the One who made me
Is catching every word
As you wait on change–remember that those who wait on him are never, ever put to shame (Psalm 25:1). Keep on waiting. There is hope.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
When I first arrived back after living in Africa, it surprised me. I discovered it over lattes, or in the church foyer, or checking out at the grocery store.
I realized a lot of people were hungry, starved even, to be listened to. To have someone look them in the eye, even for a few seconds, and be with them. Undistracted. Agenda-free. Curious. Empathetic.
Then I realized how hard it can be to live in America and stay present with people.
We can blame it on smartphones or social media or shoehorned schedules or earbuds. But really, presence isn’t just being robbed from us. We’re…surrendering it freely, right?
I’ve been there, rushing breathless into a coffee shop, or rehearsing my response while someone’s still talking, or my kids having to reel in my attention with “Mom!”
It’s hard to be all there. (Don’t miss All There: Tips on Being Fully, Powerfully Present.)
The sheer amount of information we’re attempting to digest in a single day is staggering. Frontiers for Young Minds reports,
Scientists have…found that an average person living today processes as much as 74 GB in information a day (that is as much as watching 16 movies), through TV, computers, cell phones, tablets, billboards, and many other gadgets. Every year it is about 5% more than the previous year. Only 500 years ago, 74 GB of information would be what a highly educated person consumed in a lifetime…
And looking around at the one-man band parents are expected to attempt–presence seems an increasingly rare and precious gift for our kids.
(Wondering if you’re a good listener? I like FamilyLife.com’s quiz on this.)
As my own teens army crawl through tough issues, I feel as if God’s impressing on me that one of my primary roles with them is simply to be present. I think of Proverbs 23:26: My son, give me your heart.
It’s not feeling very sexy, to tell you the truth. With three teens and a tween, let’s just say the forecast is hormonal with a chance of grumpy, with frequent gusts of icy, irrational anger.
I’ve scrabbled for purpose since we moved back from Africa, but as I’ve wondered why God pulled me from my sweet spot, I feel like I’m hearing his whisper: Here. I need you to be right here, raising these kids through tough days. Only you can do this.
So if, in the words of Ed Stetzer, I’m going to “Put [my] ‘yes’ on the table and let God put it on the map”–I need to be all here. In this zip code. Being present with each person in my path, I hope, but especially the work he’s given that only I can do.
Sometimes presence just looks like not opening my computer after dinner. Or incentivizing them with pricey caffeinated beverages. Or sliding dinner in at the right time so we can all eat together, even if occasionally we don’t get along. Maybe it’s shutting down Netflix at night when one of them knocks on the door and looks like they might want to talk. Or making the most of a car ride, just laughing or lamenting the day.
Want to up the presence factor with your kids? A few ideas to get the ball rolling.
All There: Tips on Being Fully, Powerfully Present
All There: Tips on Being Fully, Powerfully Present with God (FREE PRINTABLE)
How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk
The Safe Place Series, #3: Practical Tips to Becoming a Person of Refuge
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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